What is Social Media Marketing ?
Social Media Marketing is a marketing strategy using Social Medias. It is the process of gaining attention and traffic to a website through social medias. It includes creating and sharing the content through social medias that attracts the people. Social media marketing
is an important marketing strategy utilized by almost all companies today. The emergence of social medias changed the pace of marketing. The effective use of social medias in marketing can boost your popularity to a large extend. It will help you to earn more profit in a less expensive way. Here we are discussing about some social medias that can be used in marketing.
Social Medias Used in Marketing
Some important social medias used in marketing are :
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Google+
- LinkedIn
- Instagram
- Pinterest
- YouTube
- Yelp
- Foursquare etc.
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking site which has a large number of users worldwide. Twitter was created in March 2006 and launched in July 2006. It is estimated that as of March 2016 Twitter has more than 310 Million monthly active users. Millions of Tweets are being posted on Twitter per day. Twitter allows sharing of short messages of 140 character length known as Tweets. These Tweets can include text, hash tags, images, GIF, Emoji, videos or links to other websites.
Twitter allows companies to post their updates as Tweets. This Tweets will appear on followers’ timelines. People can like this tweets and they can Retweet this tweets to share with their followers. Twitter can also be used for providing customer support. Many companies use this platform to provide 24×7 customer services. This will increase the loyalty and trust value of the company.
The figure shows the Twitter Page of Samsung Galaxy Mobiles.
Advertising with Twitter
Twitter also provides paid advertising. We can use the paid advertising for the following purposes. They are:
- Tweet Engagements
- Website Clicks or Conversions
- App Installs or App Re-Engagements
- Video Views
- Followers
- Leads on Twitter
Steps in Creating a Twitter Campaign :
We should select the country and language before selecting the campaign. After that we can select the campaigns we need. After selecting the campaign we can create our campaign. There are four steps in creating the campaign.
Step 1 : In this step, you can set the name of your campaign. You can also add the website which we intended to promote and set the relevant categories related to your business.
Step 2 : Using this step you can choose your audience. You can select the audience based on their location, gender, interests etc.
Step 3 : In this step you have to select your budget. You can select the amount for which you are organizing this campaign and the method for paying.
Step 4 : In this steps you can create the tweets that you want to use for the campaign. You can choose the existing tweets or create new ones.
These are the four basic steps of creating a paid Twitter campaigns. After completing this tasks you can successfully launch your campaign. These ads will appear on followers’ timelines as promoted tweets.
Facebook
Facebook is also an online community site like twitter. It is one of the important site which is used in Social Media Marketing. Facebook was launched on 4th February 2004. Facebook provides features similar to twitter. Fb allows posting of longer descriptions than the short tweets of twitter. It also allows sharing of photos videos, testimonials etc. People can like this posts and share or tag it and they can also comments on this posts.When we advertise using fb we should create a facebook page. The commonly repeated mistake in this case is that people create a profile instead of a page. Please remember that a profile is not meant for marketing. For marketing purposes we must create a page not a profile.
Facebook also provides paid advertising like Twitter. The facebook advertising can be used to promote our page and to increase our popularity more efficiently and effectively. Facebook provides paid advertising for different purposes. Using the facebook advertising we can send more people to our website, increase the conversions on the website, boost or promote the pages, to increase the installation of your app and to enhance the engagement in your app etc.
Here is an image showing the Facebook Page of Rolex Watches.
For more information about facebook advertising please read the article Facebook Page Creation and Advertising.
Google+
Google+ was launched in June 2011. Google+, in addition to providing pages and some features of Facebook, is also able to integrate with the Google search engine. Google adwords, Google maps etc. can also be integrated with Google+. Google+ allows the creation of different interest based communities. We can create different circles such as friends, family, colleagues etc. Images, posts, events updates etc. can be shared to the different Google+ communities and groups.
Google+ allows targeted advertising and location-based marketing and promotions and navigation services. Such promotional activities are introduced with the development of Google Personalized Search and other location-based search services. Google+ Collections allows you to categorize your updates by topic. Such categorized collections will help your followers quickly find updates for the topics they’re interested in. You can also induce people to share your updates if they like it and it will act as a recommendation for your brand or company. Thus you can gain more popularity and trust among others and this will help you to establish yourself. Through your Google Plus profile you can share content and news about your business. This will drive more traffic to your business.
Figure shows the Google+ page of Coco Cola
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a professional business-related networking site. It allows companies to create professional profiles for themselves and for the companies. You can create a LinkedIn page for a company using your personal profile. These pages will allow business owners to promote their products or services and be able to interact with their customers. The use of widgets helps the members to promote their various social networking activities, such as Twitter stream or blog entries of their product pages, onto their LinkedIn profile page.
Many companies also use Linked for the purpose of employee recruitment. Due to the spread of spam mails through different job portals, now companies opt to recruit their employees using trusted networks such as LinkedIn. Companies have voiced a preference for the amount of information that can be obtained from a LinkedIn profile, versus a limited email. LinkedIn also provides paid campaign like Facebook and Twitter.
The LinkedIn page of Infosys is shown in the figure.
Instagram
Instagram was launched in October 2010. It is a social networking service that enables its users to share photos, videos either publicly or privately. It also allows sharing the photos or videos through other social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc. In addition to this the users can also follow other user’s feeds. Instagram will take over the social media marketing soon. The user engagement rate of Instagram was 15 times higher than of Facebook and 25 times higher than that of Twitter. Instagram provides a platform for companies through which they can reach the customers in a rich visual environment. Using this platform the user and the company can communicate publicly and directly.
Instagram app is now used by many companies boost their visual marketing strategy. Companies see Instagram as the most potential platform to attract their customers especially the younger target groups. Instagram can be accessed using both smart phones and internet. Thus it will help the companies to expand their brand exposure to the maximum extent. Instagram also inspires people to collect and share the pictures of their favorite brand and thus creating a user induced sharing which gives more popularity for the brands.
Here is the Instagram page of Myntra
Pinterest
Pinterest is also an image sharing site which was launched in October 2012. You can save and share photos using Pinterest. You can create boards based on your interest and post photos on this boards. The photos which are known as Pins can be arranged on different boards based on different categories. You can also invite other people with the common interests to pin photos on your boards. You can also save or repin photos on other people’s boards. You should pin images that attracts the attention of people.
Pinterest provides you an opportunity to reach your audience through a visually attractive medium. You can use this medium to market your products and also to sell your products. You can sell your products through Pinterest my including Buyable Pins. Buyable pins let people buy your products through the Pinterest itself. There won’t be a need for people to leave pinterest to buy your products.
Figure shows the Pinterest Page of KFC
YouTube
YouTube is a video sharing app which was created in February 2005 and bought by Google in November 2006. Here the advertisements are done in a way to suit the target audience. YouTube provide video based marketing. Here users can view, share, upload videos and can also comment on videos. Companies use YouTube to grow audience by creating videos that attracts users.
In YouTube the ads appear will be in sync with the content of the video requested. So it will increase the chance for a user to get attracted toward s a product related to the content he searches. YouTube provides promotional activities such as sponsoring a video. Paid campaigns can also be organized on YouTube.
The BBC News’ account in YouTube is shown in the figure
Vine
Vine is also a video sharing service. It provides short form video sharing service which provides sharing of six-second-long looping video clips. It was founded in founded in June 2012 and Twitter acquired it in October 2012. The videos uploaded on vine can also be shared using other social medias such as Facebook, Twitter etc. The videos can be organized in different groups based on different themes. Vine app is also available for users to view and to browse for videos.
Using vine companies can create short videos about their products and services. This will help your audience to get more information about your products. You can also inspire your audience to share their own videos about their experience about you product. Thus you can get more attraction and attention among your audience. You can reach your audience more easily and educate them in an entertaining way.
This is how the home page of Vine appears
Yelp
Yelp was founded in 2004. It is a place where your businesses can be listed based on your location. Here the businesses are searchable by their locations. Businesses owners can create the profiles for their businesses. They can also post and share information such as the business location, contact information, pictures, and service information. Yelp keeps pages devoted to different locations and different business categories. User can see these pages and they can write reviews about the businesses and about the products. They can also rate the businesses using a one to five star rating system.
Yelp is also available as an app. Yelp added features for customers to order and purchase things online, to book rooms in hotels, to make an appointment at a spa etc. Yelp made it possible for business owners to respond to the reviews of the users in public or as private. Businesses can also post about the events that they organize or about the special deals they provide.
Here is the home page of Yelp
Foursquare
Like Yelp Foursquare also works based on the location. It provides location based listing of businesses. The service was created in late 2008 and launched in 2009. Foursquare provide suggestions based on a user’s current location. Using Foursquare the user can search for restaurants, nightlife spots, shops and other places of interest in their surrounding area. It also provides opportunity for users to add reviews and rate the businesses.
The figure shows the FourSquare Suggestions for Shopping near Kochi
The Social Media Marketing is the Present and Future of marketing. As a marketer we should know which are the medias that could bring us the traffic. The Social Media Marketing can bring you a great popularity and will help you to keep pace with the changes that happens in the world. If you are a marketer you should use the social medias if you want to sustain in the marketing field.
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